Awards & Winners

Yakir Aharonov

Date of Birth 28-August-1932
Place of Birth Haifa
(Israel, Haifa District)
Nationality Israel, United States of America
Profession Physicist, Scientist, Professor
Yakir Aharonov is an Israeli physicist specializing in quantum physics. He is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University in California. He is also a distinguished professor in the Perimeter Institute. He also serves as a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University in Israel. He is president of the IYAR, The Israeli Institute for Advanced Research. His research interests are nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1959, he and David Bohm proposed the Aharonov–Bohm effect for which he co-received the 1998 Wolf Prize. In 1988 Aharonov et al. published their theory of weak measurement, which does not disturb the quantum state being observed. This work was motivated by Aharonov's long time quest to experimentally verify his theory that apparently random events in quantum mechanics are caused by events in the future. Verifying a present effect of a future cause requires a measurement, which would ordinarily destroy coherence and ruin the experiment. He and his colleagues were able to make weak measurements and verify the present effect of the future cause.

Awards by Yakir Aharonov

Check all the awards nominated and won by Yakir Aharonov.

2009


National Medal of Science for Physical Science
(For his contributions to the foundations of quantum physics and for drawing out unexpected implications of that field ranging from the Aharonov-Bohm effect to the theory of weak measurement.)

1998


Wolf Prize in Physics
(For the discovery of quantum topological and geometrical phases, specifically the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the Berry phase, and their incorporation into many fields of physics.)